TRANSFORMING CAMPUS

Three more residence halls in the East Campus Housing Project are being readied for fall 2013 occupancy, with a fourth to open in the spring. This project, along with the many other construction projects mentioned in this report, is helping to position Binghamton University to be the premier public university of the 21st century.

50 YEARS OF TEACHING

The Division of Academic Affairs celebrated the golden anniversary of three faculty this spring: Gerald Kadish, who retired after 50 years of teaching history; Zoya Pavloskis-Petit, who continues to teach comparative literature; and Carrol Coates, who retired from teaching French literature and poetry. Read about them and the many other divisional initiatives in this report.

IT'S ALL ABOUT CONNECTING

A first-ever Alumni Leaders Conference on campus inspired and empowered Binghamton University alumni leaders, even as the University's Web and social media initiatives made it easier for all constituents to connect with Binghamton. The big news, however, was the announcement that Vice President for External Affairs Marcia Craner, was stepping down. Read all about it here.

CELEBRATING RESEARCH ACROSS CAMPUS

The Division of Research promotes and supports the research and scholarly activities of the University community and fosters an environment that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. In this quarter’s report, you can see how the campus is celebrating research at every level as well as read about the successes of students and faculty alike.

IMPROVING STUDENT LIFE

Everything the Division of Student Affairs does helps improve student quality of life. Read here about the many activities and initiatives that have taken place this spring, ranging from implementation of an electronic medical records system and the addition of adaptive technology, to our path-breaking 20:1 sexual assault prevention program that has attracted the attention of the Department of Defense as a best practice.

EXCELLING IN SPORTS, CLASSROOMS, COMMUNITY

Binghamton University's student-athletes worked hard and played hard this spring — and the results are in. Read here about the many individual and team accomplishments from this season, as well as the academic excellence our student-athletes attain. And while you're at it, you can also read about the contributions our student-athletes make in the community.

Assistant Professor of Cinema and Art History Brian Wall is fascinated by film. His favorite? Kiss Me Deadly.

Film historian recasts ‘Big Lebowski’ as art

Brian Wall is glad his 8-year-old is finally out of that Disney princess film stage. And he doesn’t always look forward to watching the latest blockbuster, either.

It’s the downside of the medium — films are made for profit. “If Hollywood is going to invest X millions of dollars, it has to appeal to everybody, which means it doesn’t appeal to anybody,” said Wall, an assistant professor of cinema and art history at Binghamton University.

That sounds like what his latest research interest — Theodor Adorno — might say. Adorno, about whom Wall is writing a book, was a composer and neo-Marxist social thinker of the Franklin School who turned his attention to popular media.

“The sheer idiocy of a mass product created especially for you assumes the character of a ghastly necessity,” Adorno wrote. “Individual needs have been so ruthlessly eliminated from the product that they have to be involved like magic formulae to prevent the customer from becoming aware of the murderous ritual of which he is the victim.”

Wall argues with that view in Theodor Adorno and Film Theory: The Fingerprint of Spirit. He looks at four films, The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly, Repo Man and The Big Lebowski, to suggest that film, while an industrial product, can be art in its own right.

Heavy stuff for a guy who’s as interested in Cary Grant rom-coms as he is in films of the Weimar Republic, which evolved into the film noir that still fascinates him (Kiss Me Deadly is his favorite film, at least today), and influenced modern filmmakers such as Quentin Tarentino and Steven Spielberg.

Wonder about that? Watch 1922’s Nosferatu, Wall said. See how it uses light and shadow to tell the story. See how it plays with the idea of the living and the dead. See how it comments on Jews and anti-Semitism in Germany, given the vampire turns into a pile of gold and physically resembles Germany’s
ethnic Jews.

Watch The Maltese Falcon or Kiss Me Deadly. Same techniques. You’ll find them in Raiders of the Lost Ark and throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

What were the filmmakers trying to say? And in what social and political context were they saying it? That’s as much fun as the roller coaster modern film can be.

Now consider the need for profit and the context. A typical multiplex film costs $100 million to make and distribute. Social commentary is ditched in favor of commercial appeal, which is why Wall scrambles for a pen when told of The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, a sub-$100,000 film that used its Internet fan base to fund both production and distribution, skipping the traditional route.

That’s what Wall took with him when he watched one recent blockbuster: The Dark Knight Rises. Director Christopher Nolan made the crew watch The Battle of Algiers, a 1966 film commissioned by the Algierian government after its revolt from France. It portrays both sides of the conflict as sympathetic characters in an exercise, Wall said, of “political schizophrenia.”